During all the hullabaloo over bringing in the land transfer and vehicle registration taxes — not to mention the outrage that ensued when Mayor David Miller ordered cutbacks after the taxes were deferred — a number of right-wing councillors complained about their inability to access information and play an active role in the decision making process at city hall. In December, I surveyed councillors from across the political spectrum to try to get a sense of what the problem was. On one hand, council’s right wing had just succeeded in providing Miller with his biggest challenge to date — whether the taxes would actually pass was anyone’s guess for a while. On the other hand, the right’s track record since Miller came in to power hasn’t been all that impressive — city hall’s uncoordinated “unofficial opposition†appeared to be doing little more than just saying no to many of Miller’s proposals.
My interviews led to the article, The Rising Right, in the current issue of Eye Weekly:
Will 2008 be the year that Miller’s fiercest critics start doing more than just saying no to the ideas that the mayor and his allies bring forward? 

Not likely, say councillors from across the political spectrum. Of course, the reasoning behind their answers depends on who you talk to. Some say that it’s the way city hall works that prevents councillors who usually oppose the mayor from being effective. Others argue that Miller’s most vocal opponents just don’t know how to work city hall. If a strong opposition is vital for a healthy democracy, neither explanation bodes well for Torontonians. Either we have a dysfunctional government, where avenues for ideas that may not mesh with the mayor’s have been closed off, or a good number of councillors — specifically those who are supposed to be providing alternatives during these financially trying times — simply don’t know how to do their job. 

Since I collected more information than I had space for in the paper, I plan to blog more on the subject this week. Kicking off the follow up to the article is a post on where Councillor Mike Del Grande stands.
One of the things that frequently came up during my interviews that I’d like to investigate and mull over more is the idea of bringing party politics to city hall (this should culminate in a separate post or article at some point). A number of councillors say that party politics is where we’re heading (in fact, many argue that it already exists, but it’s a party of one: the NDP). Some expressed that this change (which would need Queen’s Park approval) would be terrible for the city, distancing political representatives more from their constituents and narrowing the diversity of voices that contribute to decisions made. Other’s said that party politics would help provide the checks and balances a city the size of Toronto now needs. I’m curious what Spacing readers think — would party politics be good for city hall?
34 comments
On the whole I’d say not – it doesn’t seem to help in Vancouver with the civic parties and the influence of the national scene, particularly the NDP, is intrusive enough as it is – see Trinity Spadina last time out for instance.
I think city councillors can be genuinely independent and having to get through a nomination fiasco
I think party politics is a fantastic idea. Having every councilor be independent promotes parochial, ward-specific politics and inhibits side-wide initiatives. Vancouver (and most BC muncipalities) is an excellent example of where party politics works.
Also, as the article mentioned, the NDP has a strong vice-grip on municipal politics as it stands. It’s time to even the playing field.
That should have said “city-wide” initiatives.
I would say that party politics would be a bad thing, as the First-Past-The-Post form of party politics would put an end to the casual coalitions we have now. I like coalition building among my elected representatives.
Proportional representation would be great at the provincial and federal levels, but I can’t think of any form that would really work in a city setting. (I’d love to be corrected.) Having a councillor of one’s own seems much more important and useful than having an MP or MPP of one’s own.
Moreover, when your councillor of choice does not get elected, the lack of party politics makes the elected councillor seem less like an enemy. I think that’s very valuable.
Party politics is very common in European municipalities. It is interesting to note that many national governments fall or do major cabinet shuffles when their party does poorly in municipal election. I guess it shows how local governments are seen as a vital aspect in European politics. Many cities in Europe don’t elect their councilor according to wards (like Vancouver if I am not mistaken), a councilor is responsible for the whole city and not for a few neighborhoods, and this brings parochial politics to a minimum. I don’t think it would make things any worse if the Toronto adopted party politics. Let’s face it; council can’t become anymore dysfunctional that it already is.
Party Politics would be a bad thing, especially if everybody had to vote the party line. Although one can claim that the NDP has some grip already I would say that Toronto in general is just more left leaning already. The left right thing is so meaningless and paralyzes government.
The reason the so-called right cant get anything done is that they have nothing to offer except to complain about everything.
And if people want to end the parochial (which I like) and stagnated Council we need to go back to a shorter term and a rule that a person has to sit out every 3ard term. On all sides we need some fresh faces.
It’s amusing that the idea of the “NDP party” at City Hall arouses so much hot air from the right. Have we forgotten the days of MegaMel when the right ran Council? Have we forgotten the days of the inaccessible Metro government that didn’t give a damn about the kind of local participation the old cities (some of them anyhow) were known for?
Access to information is a question of municipal culture, not one of whether there are parties or not. Groups / parties / cabals like to keep information private. So do the bureaucracies on which they depend.
In the bad old days of domination by the right, the left was quite good at finding out what was really happening. Maybe the right could learn a thing or two about what being in opposition really means.
Steve
As others have said for the NDP it is already here. We might as well be upfront and honest about it.
Leo, here’s a proposal for how proportional representation could work at the municipal level in Ontario.
I was thinking to myself the other day that Spacing just hasn’t been the same for the past little while. I couldn’t put my finger on it; I simply knew that I had not read an interesting story for some weeks now.. Once a devoted daily reader, I found myself visiting less often, and my confidence in the site was really shaken. I was really starting to lose my faith.
… And like a knight in shining armour, Dale returns!
I used to think that I was a fan of Spacing Wire — now I realize I am simply a fan of Dale.
Welcome back Dale, we missed you!! Please never, ever, ever leave us again!
Yoav >> I think it was the holiday break. Spacing slowed down a fair bit then. We should give folks a break once and while that doe these type of things. Things always go up and down. I sometimes get down on blogs, but Spacing always seems to get better as time goes on (no doubt they have their ups and downs too).
Yoav> Indeed, holiday time slowed down the past two weeks. All contributors to Spacing Toronto are volunteer, so that heightened the need for a break. That, and family members get angry when stay glued to your laptop when you’re supposed to be visiting and holiday-making.
One thing we often forget is that previous governments have a huge impact on how our city operates today. The current government doesn’t “run” the city, the bureaucracy does – and they operate from laws and procedures that were laid out years ago.
Also, we often ignore the internal management of this bureaucracy, which is made up of a large group of people who are unelected and generally unaccountable to the public.
The real solution to improving government services lies with improving how the systems are managed, not simply by changing the “face” of who governs.
Damn, where’s Dave Meslin/Mez to weigh in on this.
I’m totally opposed to party politics in City Hall, but he’d be able to articulate the MANY reasons why it’s a bad idea much better than I could.
Seriously, go track down Mez…I don’t have time for this debate right now.
Carlos said: . . .”Party politics is very common in European municipalities. It is interesting to note that many national governments fall or do major cabinet shuffles when their party does poorly in municipal election.” . . . .
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This is very true. Most European countries do not have a middle-tier government like a province or state. That must count for much in the political landscape.
Absolutely. It would help bring more accountability to City Hall by reducing the incredible advantages of incumbency that now exist.
Absolutely a horrible idea.
1. The structure of council is a co-op, not a parliament. Exec Committee gives more power to the mayor but as a citizenry we asked for that — we were sick of having a mayor that was equal to a ward councillor. Miller campaigned on this and won with 57%.
2. It would mean ideas from the other side of the spectrum wold NEVER be heard or implemented.
3. It means ideology rather than practicality would be the rule of the day. Some may argue this is the case now but it would be even worse. Look at the feds — almost nothing has been done since Martin was elected in 2004. Even when there is room for consensus building it doesn’t happen.
I do look forward to Mez weighing in on this. we have discussed this often and he has a very nuanced argument against it.
To add to Matt’s point: At the last Council meeting there was a debate on the noise by-law. The question was how to weigh the rights of residents to a relatively peaceful and quiet neighbourhood against the needs of other Torontonians to do construction and other activities that generate sometimes excessive levels of noise.
Frankly, I lost track of the debate and can’t tell you what they ended up doing but there are three things I remember. First, Councillor Moscoe got up and credited Councillor Stintz for her work on the issue. Second, during the debate, Councillor Stintz talked to a number of the Milleristas (including Deputy Mayor Pantalone) offline, presumeably about the nuances of the issue and/or ammendments to the staff report. And, third, after the debate, people from all sides of the political spectrum offered Councillor Stintz handshakes for her leadership on the non-partisan hot potato of a file.
That’s Council at its best and it never would have happened if there were political parties at city hall.
I’m undecided on the issue, but I want to point out that I see the third part of Matthew’s argument as a rationale FOR parties:
Look at the feds  almost nothing has been done since Martin was elected in 2004. Even when there is room for consensus building it doesn’t happen.
In my view, this point supports the notion that minority governments are ineffective at implementing major changes. In a party system, the conventional wisdom is that majority governments are better at pushing through temporarily unpopular legislation that is for the greater good. The deficit-fighting Liberal spending cuts of the ’90s are a good example at the federal level. With an NDP majority at the municipal level, I think we’d be more likely to see major initiatives happen like road pricing and a real bike network.
Party politics would dispense with the charade of those aligned with the Liberal and Conservative parties pretending to be non-partisan, when they are, in fact, very much partisan in promoting the right wing agenda, just as those on the left promote the NDP agenda.
It is also quite likely that the lack of party politics contributes to the abysmal voter turnouts in municipal elections. This is certainly true among immigrants who don’t understand “non-partisan” municipal politics…they always ask which political parties the candidates belong to.
I’d be happy if there was a way to prevent any party agenda, NDP or otherwise, from directing the city politics. Keep all that baggage at Queens Park or Parliament Hill.
I remember watching the CBC Evening News about ten years ago and the debate of allowing party politics in city government was brought up. The news story was saying how party politics was experimented with in the 1960s and failed. I personally find partisan politics defies true logic. Yes at certain times the government needs to cut spending and taxes and then go the opposite way at other times.
We should totally have parties to label people with. And I want to know whether they are a rocker or a mod or hip hop head. Also, only 3 choices. No punkers or ravers. Pick a side. Stick to it. Otherwise they’re being unloyal and a “not as advertised” product.
Or without the jackass-ness: I’d rather elect someone on the basis of the individual person not on a set of ideals they’ve aligned themselves with.
The mods had better style, but the rockers were better people in the long run.
You don’t need parties to get things done, but the current system we have at city hall is a collection of fiefs, each councilor has his/her own fiefdom. So any decision that does not see a particular councilors fiefdom gaining something, is likely to result in a no. So something that would be of great benefit to York-Centre, is unlikely to get a positive vote from the councilor from Trinity-Spadina, especially if it costs a lot of money, that could be spent in Trinity-Spadina, not to pick on either of those wards, just the first two that came to mind.
The problem with parties, is all your doing is going from 44 fiefdoms to 2 or possibly 3 (the parties). Doesn’t mean your anymore likely to get things done.
The city is as corporation, set up to manage the city infrastructure and space on the behalf of the city residents. That’s why we call it The Corporation of the City of Toronto. Council is the board of directors for that corporation, with residents taking the roll of stock holders. City hall, and a good number of residents seem to often forget this.
It all comes down to money.Party politics allows national and provincial parties come into a ward and hammer any other candidates out of the picture.If we allow party politics(as if it doesn’t exist already!),we will just have a mini provincial election every four years that benefit the city or not depending on which party is elected.
What ever happened to just getting down to business and actually managing the city and getting things done.??
So its a NO from me.
Let me toss this into the fray: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3683/is_199904/ai_n8848103/pg_1
Dale: before writing your next piece on this topic, and if you have the resources to do so, give Jim a call. He’s been working on this subject for a long time now, and if nothing else, he tells good stories. http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/polisci/nav03.cfm?nav03=69079&nav02=60614&nav01=4816
I moved from Toronto to Montreal a while back and was shocked to discover that there are municipal political parties here. I find that news from City Hall (or should I say, Hà ´tel de Ville) is so often dominated by the antics of party-jumping, intra-party disagreements and the like that real issues don’t get discussed.
“Damn, where’s Dave Meslin/Mez to weigh in on this.
I’m totally opposed to party politics in City Hall, but he’d be able to articulate the MANY reasons why it’s a bad idea much better than I could.
Seriously, go track down Mez…I don’t have time for this debate right now….”
Christ, what an idiotic post! Why bother?
Dinkus–I provided an answer to the question as asked, I just didn’t/don’t have time to provide a good reason.
If my post is idiotic and a waste of time, then insulting my pathetic contribution to the discussion without contributing anything yourself is doubly so.
My post may be lame, but at least it’s on topic, and neither hypocritical nor mean. Dinkus indeed…
That’s not very nice, dinkus.
If your point is that her post took up space without actually contributing to the dialogue, doesn’t that make your longer post even more idiotic?
let’s be nice to each other, eh?
Oops. I didn’t see that Melissa had already pointed out that dingus was calling himself an idiot. Sorry for being repetitive. My computer has been frozen all night since a hydro wire fell in my neighbourhood at midnight, and all the power went out, and i got scared and ran out of the house and set off the alarm and then stood in the rain for an hour.
I’ve got a lot to say about the idea of parties at City Hall and municipal electoral reform in general. Too much to fit in a comment box. I’ll wait for Dale to write a few more posts and then I might do a post too that summarises a few ideas and things I’ve learned from activism, lobbbying, City Idol, etc…
Thanks Dale for sparking this discussion!
The fun drained out of this thread pretty damn quick!
Shurely shome mishtake?
Of course I’m an idiot. What’s eveybody else’s excuse?
We don’t need an excuse. You’re the one who acted like a jerk. We just called you on it. No excuse needed for that.
I thought my post was fun…..
this is why I hate blogs. : )